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Associated Press

Wildfires scorching homes, land _ and California's budget

UPPER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Just a month into the budget year, the state has already spent more than one-quarter of its annual fire budget, at least $125 million, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Mike Mohler said Wednesday. Following years of drought and a summer of record-breaking heat, immense tracts of forests, chaparral and grasslands have become tinder that allows even a small spark to explode into a devouring blaze, authorities said. "We're being surprised. Every year is teaching the fire authorities new lessons," Gov. Jerry Brown said at a news conference. "We're in uncharted territory." More than 13,000 firefighters are battling fires with the help of crews from as far away as Florida but Brown repeated predictions from fire officials that California can expect a future of devastating fires, in part because of the changing climate.

Donor helping fraudsters, offshore bettors backs Trump

NEW YORK (AP) — One customer was a debt collector that threatened to jail people if they didn't pay back loans that they never took out. Another was an offshore gambling operation that hid bets behind innocuous-sounding websites, including one dedicated to orange cats. A third was a phone-sex business catering to men with diaper fetishes or fantasies of raping women. Ahmad "Andy" Khawaja made his fortune in online payment processing for a host of companies, providing a key conduit in e-commerce for "high risk" merchants by helping route customers' credit card purchases to banks. And recently Khawaja has shared that wealth in the form of multimillion-dollar political donations, first to Hillary Clinton and then to Donald Trump.

Pope changes death penalty teaching, now 'inadmissible'

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has changed church teaching about the death penalty, saying in a new policy published Thursday that it is always "inadmissible" because it "attacks" the inherent dignity of all humans. The Vatican said Francis had approved a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church — the compilation of official Catholic Church teaching. Previously, the catechism said the church didn't exclude recourse to capital punishment "if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor." The new teaching, contained in Catechism No. 2267, says the previous policy is outdated and that there are other ways to protect the common good.

10 Things to Know for Today

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today: 1. WHAT PONTIFF IS SAYING ABOUT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Pope Francis changes the church's teaching on death penalty, says it is always inadmissible because it "attacks" human dignity. 2. DONOR TO CLINTON, TRUMP HELPED 'HIGH-RISK' MERCHANTS Records obtained by the AP show that a prominent political donor has helped pornographers, payday loan debt collectors and offshore gambling operations get past the gates of the banking system. 3. AUSTRALIAN STATE ERASES DECADES OF ANONYMITY FOR SPERM DONORS A new law in Victoria gives children the legal right to know who their donors are, no matter what those donors were promised, AP finds.

Australian law erases decades of anonymity for sperm donors

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — For Peter Peacock, fate arrived in the form of a registered letter. The letter, at least initially, looked to be a bit of a letdown. Peacock had gone to the post office expecting the delivery of a big, furry aviator jacket he'd ordered online. And so it was with little fanfare that the Australian grandfather and retired cop tore the envelope open as he walked back to his car — at which point he stopped dead in his tracks. "Dear Mr Peacock," the letter began. "The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) has received an enquiry of a personal nature which may or may not relate to you.

Zimbabwean leader appeals for calm after election violence

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's president said Thursday that his government has been in touch with the main opposition leader in an attempt to ease tensions after election-related violence in the country's capital. As the African nation awaited results from its presidential election on Monday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa tweeted that "we have been in communication" with challenger Nelson Chamisa and that "we must maintain this dialogue in order to protect the peace we hold dear." Mnangagwa's conciliatory remarks came a day after soldiers occupied the streets of Harare, shooting live rounds and beating demonstrators, many of whom were throwing rocks and setting fires to protest alleged fraud in Monday's election.

Identification work begins on Korean War remains now in US

HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. military is beginning the painstaking process of analyzing remains from the Korean War now that they are back on American soil after having been handed over by North Korea last week. Vice President Mike Pence and the top commander of U.S. forces in Asia, Adm. Phil Davidson, formally received the remains contained in 55 caskets during an emotional and solemn ceremony Wednesday after they arrived by military cargo jets from South Korea. "They were husbands and fathers, brothers and neighbors — long gone, but never lost to the memory of their loved ones," Pence said during the ceremony at a military base in Hawaii.

Abortion-rights activists brace for new wave of restrictions

NEW YORK (AP) — Abortion-rights advocates are intensifying efforts to make it easier for women to get abortions amid a new wave of state-level bans and restrictions expected to occur under a reconfigured U.S. Supreme Court. The efforts include boosting financial aid for women needing to travel long distances to get an abortion, and raising awareness about the option of do-it-yourself abortions. The sense of urgency stems from the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who sometimes provided the decisive vote in support of abortion rights, and the possibility that Brett Kavanaugh, nominated by President Donald Trump to replace him, would give the court an anti-abortion majority.

White House: Trump's tweet about Russia probe was an opinion

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump bluntly declared his attorney general should terminate "right now" the federal probe into the campaign that took him to the White House, a newly fervent attack on the special counsel investigation that could imperil his presidency. Trump also assailed the trial, just underway, of his former campaign chairman by the special counsel's team White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders scrambled to explain that Trump's tweet Wednesday was "not an order" and the president was not directing his attorney general to do anything. "It's the president's opinion," she said. But Trump's early morning tweetstorm again raised the specter that he could try to more directly bring special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia-Trump election-collusion probe to a premature end.

Q&A: How Facebook regulates the wild west of political ads

NEW YORK (AP) — With less than three months to go before the midterm elections, Facebook is enforcing strict new requirements on digital political ads. Among other things, they force political ad buyers to verify their identities by receiving mail at a known U.S. address. Facebook credits the system with catching at least one ad from a fake, and possibly Russia-connected, Facebook page that it discovered trying to sow political discord ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. But how does the system enforce these rules? How does it even define a political ad, particularly when a computer is making that judgment?